At His Side: The Story of the American Red Cross Overseas in World War II

By George Gershon Korson

At His Side, first published in 1945, is the authoritative work on the many important overseas activities of the American Red Cross during the Second World War. From field hospitals, nursing, blood collection, entertainment, to simply providing coffee and fresh doughnuts to exhausted troops, the dedicated workers of the Red Cross were there to save lives and boost morale. The book includes personal accounts of many Red Cross workers involved in all aspects of the Red Cross' overseas wartime efforts, and from all regions of the globe—reports from India, China, North Africa, Guadalcanal, the Philippines, Europe, Australia, Iceland, and more, are presented in a highly readable fashion. Included are 17 maps of the various theaters where the Red Cross operated.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barajima Books
• Release date: Jan 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781839741920

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© Barajima Books 2020, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

AT HIS SIDE

The Story of The American Red Cross Overseas in World War II

GEORGE KORSON

At His Side was originally published in 1945 by Coward-McCann, Inc., New York.

* * *

To the memory of American Red Cross men and women

who gave their lives serving the Armed Forces in World War II.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4

FOREWORD 6

Chapter I — PEARL HARBOR 11

Chapter II — THE S.S. MACTAN’S ESCAPE FROM MANILA 22

Chapter III — AUSTRALIA AND THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC 38

Chapter IV — THE BUNA CAMPAIGN 54

Chapter V — GUADALCANAL 66

Chapter VI — EL ALAMEIN TO TRIPOLI 73

Chapter VII — THE NORTH AFRICAN CAMPAIGN 94

Chapter VIII — CHINA—BURMA—INDIA 100

Chapter IX — ALONG ALLIED SUPPLY LINES 100

Chapter X — NEW GUINEA TO THE PHILIPPINES—ISLAND HOPPING WITH MACARTHUR 100

Chapter XI — GLORY AND DEATH IN SICILY—ITALY 100

Chapter XII — IN GREAT BRITAIN PREPARING FOR D-DAY 100

Chapter XIII — ON TO BERLIN! 100

Chapter XIV — AT HIS SIDE 100

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 100

FOREWORD

LONG before Pearl Harbor, the American Red Cross served in World War II. Beginning with the Japanese invasion of China in 1937, it provided relief for the victims of aggression as one country after another was invaded. In the Far East, in Europe, and throughout the Middle East, its foreign war relief operations kept alive millions of civilians, mostly children, with food, clothing, and medical supplies.

The same day that German troops crossed the Polish border, the organization offered help to that stricken country through the International Red Cross Committee at Geneva. Relief, supervised by an American Red Cross staff, was distributed in the Government-General area, supplies being shipped from the United States through Italian ports. With Italy’s entry into the war these ports were closed, and the Polish relief program, after available stocks had been exhausted, was discontinued. However, relief was extended to Polish refugees who fled to many countries.

Relief to Great Britain exceeded by far that for any other country. Aid began with a cash grant only a few hours after her declaration of war. Civilians bombed from their homes during the great air raids and refugees from Allied countries received the greater part of American Red Cross assistance. The American Junior Red Cross financed special nurseries for British children orphaned, maimed, or made homeless by German air attacks. The American Red Cross Harvard University Hospital in England during 1941-1942 was prepared to fight epidemics if they had developed.

An American Red Cross relief mission arrived in Moscow not long after the invasion of Russian soil. From then on, a continuous stream of supplies, most of them purchased with United States Government funds, went to Russia over the winding desert and mountain roads from the Persian Gulf, through the hazardous waters of the Arctic Ocean to Murmansk or across the Siberian steppes from Vladivostok. Russia became the second largest field of American Red Cross foreign relief operations.

The American Red Cross was at work in France before its fall, and subsequently its activities were restricted to the unoccupied area where its workers supervised the distribution among civilians of six shiploads of food, clothing, and medicines. In May and June, 1941, bread made from American flour was distributed in unoccupied France. Later, the organization’s efforts were directed toward providing milk for French children and layettes for infants.

Relief of various kinds was extended to many thousands of homeless refugees in Europe and throughout the Middle East.

In nearly every invaded country, relief started immediately after the enemy’s attack and was continued as long as the distribution could be supervised by an American Red Cross staff. Norman H. Davis, then chairman of the American Red Cross, insisted upon this.

It was a fortuitous circumstance that found Mr. Davis directing the Red Cross in the most crucial period of its history. A man with the rare combination of experience and vision, of warm human traits and executive ability, he enjoyed the confidence of most of the civilized world and the affection and admiration of his fellow countrymen.

Chairman Davis was a roving ambassador for two wartime presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, and in peacetime served under two other presidents, Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. Most of his diplomatic missions in Europe concerned disarmament and peace, ideals closest to his heart. By nature a gentle, good-humored man, he was willing to fight only for peace. When the cause of world peace seemed lost, he found solace in his appointment by President Roosevelt to head the American Red Cross. That was in 1938. In a letter to Mrs. Roosevelt thanking her for her word of congratulation, Mr. Davis wrote: I must say there is a humanitarian and spiritual aspect to the Red Cross which makes a particularly strong appeal to me. Having worked earnestly for many years without any appreciable results to bring about disarmament and peace and thus to prevent human suffering, I am glad to devote myself to the alleviation of human suffering which cannot be prevented.

As resolutely as he had fought for peace, Norman H. Davis threw himself into discharging the wartime mission of the Red Cross. Despite poor health, in 1943 he flew all over England, North Africa, and Sicily inspecting Red Cross installations and talking with Red Cross workers and American soldiers and officers. He gave of himself unsparingly until the last day, July 2, 1944, when, a victim of overwork, he died at Hot Springs, Virginia. His death was mourned universally.

To fill the vacancy left by Mr. Davis’ death, President Roosevelt, on July 13, 1944, appointed Basil O’Connor, distinguished lawyer and philanthropist, as the organization’s tenth chairman. The following December, Mr. O’Connor was reappointed, this time to the full term.

Former law partner, trusted friend and advisor, Mr. O’Connor long had been in the President’s confidence, and now he was entrusted by him with the chairmanship of an organization that was close to Mr. Roosevelt’s heart and to the hearts of countless Americans. To this exalted office, Mr. O’Connor brought personal qualities and experience that had won him distinction as a lawyer and as a national leader in the field of philanthropy, inter-religious relations, and brotherhood. A man of vigor and boundless energy, serving as a volunteer, it was characteristic of him that only a few weeks after taking office, he flew across the Atlantic to observe Red Cross activities on European battlefields at first hand and to learn from General Eisenhower and other military leaders how Red Cross services might be improved.

Returning from Europe, Chairman O’Connor traveled thousands of miles visiting Red Cross chapters in various parts of the United States to report on his observations. He was determined to keep in close touch with the grass roots of his organization—to report to them and in turn draw inspiration from them. His Red Cross creed is summed up in these words:

"The very first thing that strikes me as Chairman of the Red Cross is the interest the American people have in it—the pride with which they regard it—the support they furnish to it—and the belief they have in its continuing service to mankind.

"The thought that the American Red Cross belongs to all the American people is the cardinal precept in my personal articles of faith in it.

"The Red Cross is great, because it reflects and is sustained by an idea that is lodged in the emotions and in the consciousness of the masses of the people. That idea is the dignity of man, and the responsibility of all society toward its individual members. It is the interdependence of each of us upon his neighbor. It is the bond that unites all men of good will.

The Red Cross does not exist because of the desire of a few of the people to help the many. It exists because it is the will of all of the people to help themselves. That is the fundamental upon which I think the administration of the affairs of the Red Cross should be based.

Through the many months of uncertainty as the United States was drawn nearer the vortex of war, there was a growing awareness within the Red Cross of an impending crisis. This led to the preparation of plans that were put into effect immediately after the declaration of war. Tremendous demands suddenly were made upon the organization. As an auxiliary of the armed forces, it was called upon to perform a variety of vital services for the Army and Navy on the home front and overseas. Expansion far beyond any point in its history was required.

To finance this tremendous program an appeal for a $50,000,000 war fund was made soon after Pearl Harbor. This amount the people generously oversubscribed. They responded similarly to 1943 and 1944 appeals, bringing the American Red Cross total war fund to more than $420,000,000, the largest amount ever raised by voluntary contributions in this, or any other, country.

Immediately after Pearl Harbor millions of men and women turned to the Red Cross for training to qualify for various civilian defense posts under the Office of Civilian Defense. Six months later three million persons had earned their first-aid certificates. Thousands of nurses were recruited for service in the Army and Navy Nurse Corps. Thousands of trained nurses’ aides helped fill the gap by serving in civilian and veterans’ hospitals. Face to face with the shortage of doctors and nurses, women by the hundreds of thousands qualified for Red Cross Home Nursing certificates. Dietitian’s aides volunteered for civilian hospital work. Thousands of troops, preparing for amphibious warfare, took the Red Cross functional swimming and water-safety training.

Red Cross volunteer production workers made hundreds of millions of surgical dressings, knitted sweaters and other comfort articles requested by the armed forces, sewed millions of relief garments, and sewed and packed millions of kit bags. Volunteer women and girls packed millions of Red Cross standard food packages consigned to the International Red Cross Committee at Geneva for distribution to American prisoners of war and civilian internees in enemy camps and to other United Nations prisoners of war. Other volunteers drove cars, ambulances, and trucks, served many thousands of meals to troops and civilian disaster victims. Home Service workers helped care for the families of servicemen and women in financial or other trouble.

Valuable as were these contributions they could not be compared to the people’s giving of blood for the armed forces through the Red Cross. This transcended any other volunteer service on the home front. It was the gift of life itself.

The gigantic effort on the home front—the generous outpouring of time and energy on the part of some 6,500,000 Red Cross volunteers—constituted preparation and implementation for the battles of the nation’s fighting forces overseas. Serving with them were more than seven thousand Red Cross men and women who had been put through an intensive course of orientation and training in a mercy school at Washington, D.C.

From every state, from the territories, from the insular possessions came an unending procession of enrollees. Selected on the basis of education, experience, and qualities of leadership, without distinction of race, creed, or color, they were as representative a body of earnest Americans as may be found anywhere. Some wore campaign ribbons of World War I. Many had sons, daughters, or husbands in this war, some as prisoners of war. Many of the men were over the draft age or were physically unfit for actual fighting. But all were eager to participate in the war.

Starting with the pioneers who, before Pearl Harbor, were with the United States garrison troops on naval bases leased from the British, and those who accompanied the first task forces to Iceland and Northern Ireland, Red Cross workers went out with many troop transports from the United States. They went with the troops, literally, to the ends of the earth.

Through the activities of these workers, this book endeavors to tell the story of American Red Cross overseas operations in World War II. I am far from unmindful of the importance of the Red Cross home-front program, but that is a big story in itself, demanding a book all its own.

My principal sources for At His Side were: returned overseas workers whom I interviewed at National Headquarters; story material submitted from the various war theaters by Red Cross staff correspondents; official narrative reports from overseas workers in various parts of the world; and the Red Cross Courier, informative and readable official magazine. To all these men and women, and to the Red Cross Courier’s able editor, Alwyn W. Knight, my sincere appreciation.

For making accessible to me all pertinent official Red Cross documents, and for making it possible for me to interview returned workers, I am deeply grateful to the following top executives charged with the direction of the gigantic Red Cross overseas program:

National Headquarters, Washington, D.C.: Richard F. Allen, Vice-Chairman in charge of Insular and Foreign Operations; Robert E. Bondy, Administrator, Services to the Armed Forces; Don C. Smith, Deputy Administrator, Services to the Armed Forces; Walter Wesselius, Assistant to the Vice-Chairman, Insular and Foreign Operations; William S. Hepner, Director, Military and Naval Welfare Service; and Thomas M. Dinsmore, Assistant Director, Military and Naval Welfare Service.

War theater heads: Harvey D. Gibson, Commissioner to Great Britain and Western Europe; Charles K. Gamble, Commissioner to the Southwest Pacific; Stanton Griffis, Commissioner to Pacific Ocean Areas; Stirling Tomkins, Delegate to North Africa-Italy; Robert C. Lewis, Director of Operations, China-Burma-India; and Raymond R. Fisher, Director of Operations, Middle East.

I also wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the following members of the special Red Cross editorial committee who took time off from their busy duties to read the manuscript and to advise me: Mr. Wesselius; G. Stewart Brown, Vice-Chairman in charge of Public Relations; Howard Bonham, Director of Public Relations; and Mrs. Katherine Lewis, Assistant Director of Publicity and Foreign Editor.

To all my National Headquarters’ associates, too numerous to list here, who so generously co-operated with me, and who bore so patiently the added burden of having one of their number in the throes of book writing, my sincere thanks.

George Korson

Washington, D.C.

January, 1945

Chapter I — PEARL HARBOR

WITHIN two minutes from the time the first bombs fell on Pearl Harbor, the American Red Cross was in action.

December 7, 1941, had begun with the usual bright sunshine, giving promise of another quiet Hawaiian Sabbath. Aboard the great warships berthed at the naval piers or lying in the calm inner waters of Pearl Harbor, as well as at the Army’s forts, camps, and airfields, signs of life had slackened off.

As the Japanese air armada sped through the clouds, servicemen not on duty were planning to spend a day of leisure. Honolulu’s civilian residents were waking to the relaxed and easy tempo of their Sunday mornings. Those who had risen were either at breakfast, in church, in their automobiles getting out to the sunlit beaches, golf courses, tennis courts and baseball grounds, or working in their gardens.

From the elevated balcony of the Aloha tower at the waterfront the city of Honolulu rolled over the broad coastal plain toward the mountain slopes with their sugar-cane and pineapple fields. The bright morning sun glinted upon Aloha’s great clock ticking away the precious final minutes of easygoing peace.

The hands of the clock stood at 7:55 when the enemy planes dropped their first bombs.

Oahu’s principal military and naval installations were attacked simultaneously by Japanese planes based on aircraft carriers lying out at sea. There were three separate attacks, the first at seven fifty-five, the second a half-hour later, and the third, which was beaten back, three hours after the first. Each time the enemy raiders used the same tactics over the primary targets: Japanese dive bombers dipped and dove out of the sky to drop their explosives; high-level bombers synchronized their blows with the dive bombers’; torpedo planes hurled armor-piercing torpedoes on the warships; and low-altitude planes came in with streams of machine-gun fire.

The heaviest, most devastating blows fell on the great naval base. As the calm harbor waters turned into a cauldron of burning oil, the sky was filled with smoke and flames, and gun crews manned their battle stations on decks buckling with heat.

Bombs also rained down on Hickam Field adjoining Pearl Harbor and the other airfields on Oahu Island. Hangars, and planes concentrated on concrete aprons, offered tempting targets as the Japanese swooped down out of the sky.

While soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen fought and died, the families of many of them were exposed to the same enemy strafings and bombings. Hundreds of wives and children in the flaming areas around Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field huddled in their island cottages. Those who escaped injury suffered from the effects of the wholesale devastation—lack of food, water, clothing, and in cases, shelter—and were haunted by uncertainty regarding the fate of their heroic husbands and fathers.

Japanese planes were over Honolulu, too, that Sunday morning. They swept in from the sea by way of Diamond Head, thundered and whined over Waikiki Beach and the city. They flew so low that the Rising Sun emblem on their wings was plainly visible from the streets. Rooftop-scraping planes sprayed machine-gun fire on a bewildered, fear-stricken people. Mothers huddled in doorways trying to protect their babies from the fire-spitting enemy. Driving to prearranged emergency tasks, American Red Cross workers saw the shattered bodies of children, and of men and women who had been riddled by enemy bullets or wounded by antiaircraft shell fragments.

Hawaii on that tragic day was not merely an outpost of America. It was a symbol representing the honor, dignity, and fiber of Americans. All racial and national differences were quickly merged in the common bond of defense. From that day Hawaiians joined the proud company of the people of London, Chungking, and Stalingrad, who in the testing hour had proved their unity.

And through the darkness of Hawaii’s travail, the Red Cross emblem shone as a beacon of hope. To the wounded, the sick, the homeless and hungry—young and old, regardless of race, creed, or color—the Red Cross carried the sympathy and help of the whole American people. Known for its traditional works of mercy, for its miracles of restoration in peacetime disasters, the Red Cross had the people’s faith, and its emblem calmed and comforted them.

At Pearl Harbor the American Red Cross was represented by its Hawaii chapter, made up of local volunteer men, women, and children, aided by a few Red Cross workers from National Headquarters. Through a vast network of chapters and branches, the Red Cross covers virtually every part of the United States, its territories and insular possessions. In peace or war, it is always where disaster strikes. There is a saying that the Red Cross does not have to go there; it is there.

Plans for a possible enemy air attack were perfected long before December 7. Some 2,000 civilians in the Hawaiian Islands, including doctors and dentists, had received Red Cross first-aid training. Under Mrs. A. V. Molyneux, production chairman, Red Cross women volunteers had put in long hours rolling surgical dressings and sewing hospital garments in quantities far in excess of their quotas. These, together with a great quantity of clothing, food, and medical supplies, had been quietly stored in widely separated sections of Honolulu against the day of their need. The canteen corps and motor corps were well organized and trained, and even the Junior Red Cross was prepared for its part.

Therefore there was confidence, even with disaster all around, as Chairman Alfred L. Castle of the Hawaii chapter met with workers at the city hall to put prearranged plans into effect. Mr. Castle, Hawaiian businessman who had been in Red Cross field service during the First World War, held a firm grip on the many intricate details involved in meeting the needs of this disaster. By his side, dressed in her trim gray uniform and officer’s cap, was Mrs. Herman von Holt, director of the chapter’s Volunteer Special Services, who mobilized and directed the Red Cross women volunteers. Also present were W. S. Allen, Jr., chapter executive director, and Red Cross Field Director John F. Gray, who doubled as chapter executive secretary.

For civilian defense workers, the canteen corps under the leadership of Mrs. Vernon Tenney and Mrs. Wayne Pflueger set up a canteen in the basement of the Iolani Palace, royal residence of Hawaii’s kings before the revolt of 1893 and now Territorial capitol. The Red Cross girls who worked behind the serving table in twelve-hour shifts came from every walk of life. Passing before them in an almost continuous file, hour after hour around the clock, were the hundreds of defenders—sentries off duty, men on vital work in and around the palace grounds, the disaster council and staff who came over from the armory, dispatch riders, ambulance drivers, and emergency-truck drivers.

The story of this canteen was told by Mrs. Tenney in her chapter report.

At ten o’clock, the canteen was called to duty. At one p.m. we were serving sandwiches and hot coffee.

From that time until the 17th of December [when the real emergency was over] we worked in two shifts on twenty-four hour duty.

Two of our canteen committee, Miss Juliet Carpenter and Miss Renee Halbedl, volunteered on the night of the seventh to stay on duty for as long as they were needed.

It seemed doubtful if they could function after dark, but function they did, without stopping—by flashlight—rising above such minor shocks as a gun going off in their midst. Some poor exhausted rookie had trustfully propped his rifle against the wall, probably with the safety off, and a jar had sent a bullet through the roof.

They went for more food and hot coffee in a truck without lights, crawling through black streets—never knowing when some nervous youngster on guard duty might shoot without asking any questions or when enemy raiders might arrive overhead.

The next day permanent space was allotted to us in the basement of one of our government buildings [Iolani Palace]. The menu was increased to include soup, hot cocoa, hot cereal and fruit juices. The number fed increased from 300 in the first twenty-four hours to 1,000 in the same period. With the volunteer aid from four Chinese restaurant cooks, we were able to serve full dinners in the middle of the day.

Our canteen soon became the meeting place at night for every one who could snatch a few minutes from their work for a little sustenance, the rendezvous for the guards when off duty, a haven for patrols who came in chilled and fatigued from lack of sleep, for the Medical Unit and the Emergency Police. We sent meals all over town to people who could not leave their posts—RCA operators, telephone operators, and others.

By the fourth night the natural gaiety of the Hawaiians reasserted itself. The Territorial Guard brought their ukuleles with them, and when off duty relieved the tension with old and new hulas, popular music and school songs.

We could not have carried on without the volunteers who worked as canteen aides—the lei women who washed dishes, the Boy Scouts who helped them, and the truck drivers who transported supplies for us at all odd hours.

In Honolulu injured civilians, including many children, were treated at the first-aid stations of the Honolulu County Medical Society. They were staffed by doctors, nurses, and Red Cross volunteers who worked tirelessly for many hours the day of the attacks. On succeeding days and nights they served on twelve-hour shifts while waiting tensely for a renewal of the Japanese air raids.

Many civilian casualties were taken to Honolulu’s Queens Hospital, where the surgery and first-floor emergency room were scenes of horror. Some were laid on boards supported by chairs and tables as there were not enough beds for all. At nightfall, owing to the strict blackout, all signal lights were discontinued, flashlights were covered with blue cellophane, and blankets were draped over the windows near seriously ill patients so that dim lights might be used. Many Red Cross nurses were on duty in Queens Hospital.

There were also many volunteer civilian nurses from the Red Cross registry at the Hickam Field station hospital, in the Army’s Tripler General Hospital, in the U.S. Naval Hospital at Pearl Harbor and on the Navy’s hospital ship, Solace. They worked with members of the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, many of whom had been recruited for war service by the American Red Cross.

Nurses gave hypodermics, administered blood plasma, dressed burns, sutured wounds, and helped the hard-pressed surgeons with their frequent operations. Performing these emergency tasks with only the faint blue light of a dimmed flashlight was both difficult and unnerving. Many of the girls worked until they dropped from exhaustion, and they slept in their uniforms so that they would be ready for instant duty when called.

Tripler General Hospital received a constant stream of casualties from Hickam Field, one of the worst of the bombed areas. Walter Wesselius, American Red Cross executive, witnessed the bombings from the rear porch of this hospital and pitched in to help. A patient, he was being treated for malaria contracted in China while serving as director of China Relief.

Red Cross field director at Tripler was Mrs. Margaret H. Lutz, a native of the Hawaiian Islands. Formerly stationed at the Walter Reed Hospital, in Washington, D.C., Mrs. Lutz had come only a few weeks before to inaugurate a Red Cross program for hospitalized soldiers. Her recollections follow:

December 7, 1941.1 was awakened about 8 o’clock by a neighbor’s radio, and recognized the voice of my friend Webley Edwards of KGMB, one of the two local radio stations. He was saying, This is no joke! This is the real McCoy! We are being attacked! Stay off the streets and the telephone. Keep calm, keep calm, keep calm!

I dressed hurriedly and drove down to the hospital with my husband. Everything in the city was in turmoil. At the hospital my husband and I were guided to the parking space outside the military reservation.

The first person we saw was a corpsman, Corporal McLean. Oh, my God, Mrs. Lutz, ain’t it awful! he said. Ambulances were bringing in casualties from Hickam Field. Blood was everywhere. Bloody clothing that had been cut from wounded bodies lay in piles along the corridors.

When I asked the Adjutant what I could do, he said, If you have any cigarettes, give them out. The boys have been asking for them.

We broke open the seals of two cases and passed out cigarettes freely. In the halls I met our secretary, Helene Pesante, working on the wards after having made several trips from Honolulu to Pearl Harbor with sailors whose liberty had been canceled by the Japanese attack. She burst into tears, hung on my neck, and said, They are bombing our ships.

Patients who could be moved were transferred to a school building about a mile and a half away. The wards were miraculously cleared for casualties. We walked through the wards giving out cigarettes and drinks of water. Several beds held boys who were beyond human help. After each bed had been vacated, we got fresh linen and made it up for the next occupant. And all the time the Jap planes were overhead strafing the hospital. They killed a patient who was helping unload an ambulance, and shot holes in the roof of the surgery and dental offices.

My thoughts went to the Gray Ladies and how I wished we had some who could help us. I knew of one who had been trained as a Gray Lady at the Walter Reed Hospital when I was there. She was Mrs. Frank J. McCarthy (Gladys McCarthy, who was later employed as a Red Cross recreation worker on the professional staff of the mobile unit at Aiea). While her husband, an Army officer, was on duty in Honolulu she was alone at home on the other side of the island [Oahu] where I reached her by long-distance telephone. She promised to join me at the hospital in the morning.

December 8, 1941. This was another terrible day. My husband and I arose at 4:30 a.m. and cooked eggs under small blue lights, the only ones allowed in the blackout. As no cars were allowed to have lights, we drove in total darkness at about ten miles an hour. When we reached School Street, Japs started strafing and my husband pulled the car under a banyan tree. Lie on the floor, he yelled. I did as I was told. We stayed in this position for half an hour. The strafing suddenly stopped, and we went on, he to his work and I to mine.

When I arrived at the hospital I found Mrs. McCarthy already there. We had between 400 and 500 casualties from Hickam, all of whom had lost their personal belongings in the battle. Mrs. McCarthy with her gray uniform and veil went to work immediately helping me pass out toothbrushes and tooth paste. At one bed I asked a patient if he would care for a toothbrush. His face lit up as if I had offered him a million dollars. Lady, he said, would I like a toothbrush! On succeeding days Mrs. McCarthy and I continued distributing Red Cross toilet articles, cigarettes, pipe tobacco, and reading material to patients and duty personnel, enlisted and commissioned.

Many patients and almost all hospital personnel wished to get word to their families on the mainland that they had survived the raid. As they were all ordered to stay on post and the cable companies were forbidden by the Military Governor to take messages over the telephone, it was the job of the Red Cross to meet this need. Therefore, I assigned Mrs. Ruth Benny, our recreation worker, to this task. It was announced over the loud speaker that the Red Cross was making this service available to anyone who wished it. The line formed down the hall from our office, and that first day we had nearly 200 messages.

About Wednesday cable messages began to pour in from frantic relatives on the mainland who had been notified by the War Department. These messages I attended to myself, first interviewing the doctor in charge of each patient concerned and then the patient. Wires of necessity had to be brief, but I tried my very best to give some word of cheer to those anxious relatives and to let them know that the Red Cross was at the side of their wounded sons, husbands, and sweethearts.

One message I well remember sounded more anxious than all the others. It was impossible to contact the doctor at the moment, so I sought out the patient. He was assisting in the care of other patients on the ward. When I told him that his mother was anxious about him, he became very angry. Do you mean to tell me that they notified my mother and worried her when all I’ve got is a broken finger on my left hand?

I explained that the War Department was most particular to notify their nearest of kin in all battle casualties.

Well, you can tell my mother there ain’t nothing wrong with me, and I’m going out to get me a Jap.

The way the wounded took it on the chin had everyone’s respect. There was no moaning nor cries for help. The most frequent request from badly wounded soldiers was, Let my mom know I’m O.K.

Meanwhile, at the U.S. Naval Hospital, another field director, Miss Nell Ennis, veteran World War I Red Cross worker, was going without sleep and change of clothing to perform emergency duties. Throughout the first day and night, and daily for weeks after, she gave devoted service to hospital patients.

I was having breakfast in my hotel that morning, and immediately hurried down to the Naval Hospital to offer my services to the Commanding Officer.

In a matter of minutes the hospital changed from a quiet, well-organized institution to one of intensive activity.

The Red Cross office was in the basement of one of the wings next to a dressing station. At first I was the only Red Cross worker on duty, and spent much time making beds. As soon as a casualty was taken away to the operating room, I would turn the blood-soaked mattress and put clean, fresh linen on it.

There being a desperate shortage of nurses at the Naval Hospital, I was requested by the Commanding Officer to visit the Queens Hospital in Honolulu and recruit volunteer civilian nurses.

The response was overwhelming. From December 7 to New Year’s Day, 144, many of them Red Cross nurses, gave their off days and nights to the Naval Hospital.

Doctors and nurses kept requesting Red Cross toilet gear for their patients. With the aid of my Gray Ladies I was able to distribute comfort articles from our own stock room and additional supplies from the Hawaii chapter. The chapter mushroomed over night with seemingly unlimited supplies and resources.

On Tuesday morning, the 9th, I was trying to make a patient comfortable on the lainae when I suddenly heard airplane motors overhead. The patient, horribly burned and almost lifeless, looked up and murmured, Don’t worry, Red Cross, those are our planes. You can’t fool me on their sound. By noon he was dead.

Several days before Christmas, a young sailor said, What, no Christmas tree? I sensed that his question reflected the feeling of the rest of the patients, and so decided to arrange for a Christmas party in the hospital. Christmas trees and trimmings obtained from Honolulu stores by our Gray Ladies decorated the wards. One of the medical officers played Santa Claus in a Santa suit borrowed from the Salvation Army. He went from ward to ward using a blue flashlight in the blackout. He also visited the children in their dugout and gave them each a toy, a gift of the Junior Red Cross.

There was a young sailor—we’ll call him Bill—who we were sure wasn’t more than fifteen years of age. Very ill yet uncomplaining, he was the favorite of all of us. In giving his history to one of the doctors, he said he was Nineteen, sir.

The doctor asked over and over again the question, How old are you, Bill? to get the kid to tell his right age. But the answer was always the same, Nineteen, sir.

Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, who visited the Naval Hospital when each new load of casualties arrived, was told about Bill. He took the boy’s hand and asked, How old are you, Bill? Nineteen, sir.

The Admiral smiled and said, Regardless of your age, Bill, you’re a good sailor, the bravest and best, and we are proud of you.

Bill, a smile on his lips, died shortly afterwards.

Red Cross workers, nurses, and corpsmen, all working as a team, helped naval doctors write a heroic chapter in American medical history. Directed by Captain Reynolds H. Hayden, then commanding officer of the U.S. Naval Hospital, medical officers cared for nearly 1,000 casualties within the first sixteen hours after the initial air attack—at the rate of a man a minute. For several days the most seriously wounded were operated on in the hospital’s amphitheater by surgery teams working in ceaseless relays.

More than sixty per cent of the cases were burns, chiefly flash burns that occur when the body has been exposed to the source of injury for as short a time as a second or two.

The use of sulfa drugs marked a revolutionary step in their treatment. Patients suffering from burns were treated by spraying a mixture of mineral oil and sulfanilamide on the burned surfaces with ordinary flit guns; at the same time, large doses of sulfathiazole were given by mouth as a further aid in preventing infection.

Even more dramatic than the revolutionary sulfa drugs was the dried plasma, processed from blood collected by the Red Cross, and used for the first time on a large scale. Many hundreds of casualties were unconscious from shock. Not one of the great healers of the past would have given them a chance to live; by all the former rules of medicine they were doomed to die. But, through the miracle